This invention pertains to the field of tobacco, tobacco substitute and tobacco products. More particularly, this invention concerns a process for utilizing tobacco dust by affixing it to cut, shredded or otherwise comminuted tobacco, reconstituted tobacco or tobacco substitute.
During transport of tobacco and during the various stages of its processing into tobacco products, part of the tobacco breaks up and is left behind as dust. Since this dust constitutes a loss, various ways and means have been described to convert it into some product that is useful again in the tobacco industry. Thus, it has been used together with other tobacco waste in the preparation of reconstituted tobacco. However, the papermaking process, which is an important process for making reconstituted tobacco, cannot accommodate tobacco dust. U.S.S.R. Pat. No. 923,512 describes a method of converting tobacco dust into a fibrous material by first mixing it with some binding agent and an organic solvent, followed by extrusion, drying and cutting. European patent application No. 60,467 describes a process for affixing dust particles to tobacco by mixing them with part of the casing liquid and spraying this mixture on the cut tobacco. Preferably, the dust particles to be used in this process should not be greater than about 100 .mu.m, whereas the size of most tobacco dust particles lies between 100 and 1000 .mu.m. Therefore relatively complicated extra equipment is necessary to reduce the particle size of the dust, and ensure a homogeneous dispersion of the dust in the casing liquid.
European patent application No. 56,308 describes a process for agglomerating tobacco dust particles with some binding material and incorporating the larger particles thus obtained into reconstituted tobacco.